Ambition once came with a promise: a home, a salary, progress and fulfilment. What happens when that promise is broken? Meet the women who are turning their backs on consumerism, materialism and burnout

Rose Gardner did everything right. Straight As at school and college, a first-class degree from a top university, a master’s. She got a job in publishing and rose through the ranks of some of the industry’s most prestigious companies before getting a job with a media organisation. Eventually, she bought her own flat in London.

But each time she reached a new milestone, she didn’t feel any real joy.

Continue reading...

App-based cognitive tests found to be proficient at detecting frontotemporal dementia in those most at risk

A smartphone app could help detect a leading cause of early-onset dementia in people who are at high risk of developing it, data suggests.

Scientists have demonstrated that cognitive tests done via a smartphone app are at least as sensitive at detecting early signs of frontotemporal dementia in people with a genetic predisposition to the condition as medical evaluations performed in clinics.

Continue reading...

This is the perfect time to make lasting changes – whether embracing exercise, learning a new language, planting seeds or painting your house

Take it from a hopeless dopamine addict, spring is inarguably the best season to get into outdoor exercise. The trick to building the habit – as with any habit, really – is to start small, and reduce friction. Decide what you’re wearing and charge your phone before you go to bed. For your first few sorties, don’t worry about distance, speed or doing a whole workout: just get yourself used to getting up and out of the door. Counterintuitively, it can help to not dress like an athlete: if you go out covered in Lycra, it can feel mortifying to slow to a walk, but if you’re less formally dressed you can stop for a coffee. Keep it playful, and enjoy what your body can do: if that’s some step-ups on a bench or pull-ups on a tree branch, great, but even if it’s just going a little bit faster when a good song kicks in, the endorphin rush is what you’ll remember the next time it’s wet and windy. Oh, and don’t underestimate the value of a well-curated playlist. Many’s the morning I haven’t wanted to go anywhere, only for this Rihanna/Game Of Thrones remix to put a spring back in my step. Joel Snape, fitness writer

Continue reading...

Conversations about menopause have matured but the question of when and how to treat perimenopausal symptoms remains confusing – even to a science journalist

There’s a meme featuring a confident, suave, smiling Henry Cavill – the actor best known for playing Superman – posing for photographers on the red carpet. Sneaking up behind him is wild-looking, maniacally gleeful co-star Jason Momoa.

To me, this is the perfect metaphor for perimenopause. Cavill is at the peak of his career, he looks great, clearly feels great, exudes confidence, strength and self-possession. And he’s about to get crash-tackled by a capricious and unpredictable force.

Continue reading...

NASUWT annual conference backs plan for staff trained in mental health first aid in all schools and colleges

All school leaders should receive suicide prevention training to help tackle a “mental health emergency” among teachers, under a plan unanimously backed by a vote by union members.

A workforce survey of members of the NASUWT teaching union found some teachers were driven to the point of suicide by the stress of the job.

Continue reading...

This mindset wears us down and disrupts relationships. To feel empowered in the present we must come to terms with past traumas

How we shape our identity plays a vital role in determining our wellbeing. This shaping, often unconscious, can propel our personal growth but also sometimes limit it in unintended ways.

As societal awareness grows about the traumatic impact of issues such as racism, domestic violence, prejudice, discrimination and poverty, there has been an increasing focus on trauma-informed therapy. This approach recognises trauma’s influence on wellbeing and shifts away from historically blaming victims for their circumstances.

Continue reading...

Exclusive: Katie Sidle warns of more avoidable deaths without major changes after inquest found missed chances to save sibling

A consultant neurologist whose brother died after a series of failures by an NHS mental health trust has warned there will be more avoidable deaths without fundamental reform of psychiatric care.

Dr Katie Sidle’s concerns about the refusal of Norfolk and Suffolk foundation trust (NSFT) to give her brother Christopher, who was psychotic, a crisis admission were repeatedly ignored in the days and weeks before his death last July, a coroner found this month.

In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie . In the US, you can call or text the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline on 988, chat on 988lifeline.org , or text HOME to 741741 to connect with a crisis counselor. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org .

Continue reading...

When it comes to studies, work or social abilities, some fared better than others. But the pandemic left its mark on all of us, whether we realise it or not

I recently came across a folder on my laptop labelled “Covid”. Inside I found screenshots I had taken of the government website, showing daily cases, ICU admissions and deaths from Covid-19. These reports were released every weekday during the first lockdown, and each afternoon I would collect them in this folder and study them, trying to understand what was happening in the wider world – before I began a busy evening of Zoom birthday quizzes, Netflix Party and WhatsApp.

I was shocked – both that I had ever been so macabre in the first place, and also that, four years later, I had forgotten doing it. I don’t remember being anxious or depressed during lockdown, but I have 60 image files suggesting otherwise.

Continue reading...

The Derry Girls actor is funny to her bones in this sitcom about mental health and long-term friendship. It’s full of lovely touches, if not enough nuance

In the opening episode of Big Mood, struggling playwright Maggie (Derry Girls’ and Bridgerton’s Nicola Coughlan) is on a mission. And on a scooter. But that was an expensive mistake, so she gives it away to a passerby. She needs her best friend Eddie (It’s a Sin’s Lydia West) to take the day off work, running the bar her late dad left her, and come with her to her old secondary school, where she has been invited to make a speech about her career in the theatre. Maggie is hoping to meet her old history teacher, Mr Wilson, on whom she developed a passionate teenage crush after he saved her from lecherous maths teacher Mr Phillips. “Because he wouldn’t shag a child!” she beams, full of blissful memory. “Wow,” says Eddie. “We should nominate him for a Pride of Britain award.”

Off they go, and a parade of increasingly manic hijinks ensue. Which is very much expected sitcommery until Eddie asks, as they escape the now chaos-filled school, if Maggie is, well, manic. And she is. She has bipolar disorder, and has stopped taking her meds because she can’t write while she’s on them. Thus, we find ourselves in this bleaker territory for the rest of the six-episode series, which explores the limits of a decade-long friendship between the two women as the pressures of post-20s life start to mount. “I fix problems – you have them,” says Eddie cheerily at the start. But no relationship can survive such a state for ever.

Continue reading...